No Google Glass Facial Recognition App Will Be Approved At This Time

Last month we reported on an app for Google Glass called MedRef for Glass. It is actually the first facial recognition application created for Google’s wearable gadget. It was developed at a medical hackathon in a bid to aid hospital staff so that they can bring up patient information through the gadget’s ability to recognize human faces. That’s just an example of what Glass can do with facial recognition. Though it looks like the Google Glass Team is not too fond of facial recognition apps at the moment, they’ve said that they won’t approve any app for Google Glass that offers facial recognition.

It was an interesting statement that the Glass Team posted on Google+. They explicitly mentioned that no facial recognition apps will be approved without first “having strong privacy protections in place,” this is the reason why they won’t approve such apps at this time. They’ve left the door open to do so, if they change their minds in the future. The caveat here is that Google Glass can be rooted, which means it is highly likely that users will be able to sideload apps on it. So even if Google officially doesn’t approve facial recognition apps for Glass right now, that won’t exactly be a hurdle for anyone.